ALLAN Armer has shown new pro Syed Shahabuddin the local sights - but the most welcome one for them would be Great Harwood lifting the Ribblesdale League trophy in September.

The Indian all-rounder has come to Cliffe Park looking to give them their first league title in more than 100 years.

And they have started in the right way, seeing off Edenfield and Whalley to make it two wins out of two and be joint top of the early league table.

And captain Armer has hailed Shabbahaddin’s shows to far as he has taken eight wickets and got 41 runs.

"He is a good lad although we do have a number of different nicknames for him!" said Armer. "I have taken him around Great Harwood and shown him the gym, the swimming pool and the library and he seems happy enough.

"He always has a smile on his face although, after the first game, he did ask what is going on with the weather - it was too cold, then it was raining and then there was sunshine.

"I said ‘Welcome to England’ but he was in the North Staffordshire and Cheshire League last year so he knows what it is all about."

Every year there are high hopes for Harwood who have been the nearly men so often and so Armer daren’t look too far ahead.

"We have had an excellent start. We do expect to do well because we have been up in the top four or five for the last 15 years or so," said the skipper

"But Edenfield was a difficult opener because they have a lot of young lads and a good pro in Baber Naeem who is a quality player. But we managed to scrape a win thanks to our lower order batsmen in Stuart Maher and Paul Newton.

"Then Whalley last Saturday were always going to be a good side as they have two former pros in Neil Cordingley and Mark Fallon and they have a good batting line-up - especially with their pro Rajagopal Sathish. But we managed to keep the score down and chased it well.

"Usually it has been me, Russell Whalley, Paul Houldsworth and the pro who has got the runs and this season we have been asking the others to chip in and they have in their first two games.

"I put pressure on Matthew Howarth by saying I expected 400 or 500 runs from his this season and he is now the opening batsman and got a good 27 last Saturday."

Batsman Russell Whalley has put off an operation on his injured thumb this season but, after two ducks, Armer is hoping their record breaker can get back in the runs soon.

"He is struggling at the moment but he has been troubled by his thumb and has not yet got on the scorebook. He has to have it reconstructed which is five months out but he has put his operation off."

While it is too early to get mixed up in the title talk, the Harwood skipper thinks there will be plenty of contenders this season.

"Whalley will be strong and Baxenden will be up there as well. People were also writing off Blackburn Northern after the loss of Naeem (Ashraf) and Farooq (Butt) but you can’t discount them. Nor can you discount Barnoldswick and Cherry Tree and I don’t think it will be two horse race like it was last season," added Armer, where Blackburn Northern and Baxenden battled it out for the title.

And it was the champions Northern who came out top against last season’s runners-up BAXENDEN on Saturday in their early season clash.

Mark Rishton’s men must have thought they were in with a good chance of avenging last season’s league and cup defeats when pro Will Purser took 5-30 to restrict Northern to 124.

But only ex-England star Ian Austin got into the swing of things with 22 as the rest of the batting order fell cheaply in the 26-run loss.

OSWALDTWISTLE IMMANUEL chalked up their first win of the campaign thanks to youngster Andrew Metcalf. Ossy made 120 with Metcalf’s unbeaten 42 proving vital. Dad Gerard then took five wickets leaving Ribblesdale Wanderers 16 runs short. All Sunday’s games were washed out.

Meanwhile Harwood and Ossy clash tomorrow in the first derby of the new campaign.

"It is a local derby and we expect to beat them but we lost to them last year in the league so we have got to make sure we are not complacent," said Armer.

"Last season we tended to beat the sides up there and lose against the lower sides and we have to stop that happening this season."